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A practical approach to calculating luminance contrast on a CRT

Authors:

Blair MacIntyre and

William B. CowanAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Volume 11, Issue 4

Pages 336 - 347

https://doi.org/10.1145/146443.146467

Published: 01 October 1992 Publication History

Abstract

Luminance contrast is the basis of text legibility, and maintaining luminance contrast is essential for any color selection algorithm. In principle, it can be calculated precisely on a sufficiently well-calibrated display surface, but calibration is very expensive. Consequently, most current systems deal with contrast using heuristics. However, the usual CRT setup puts the display surface into a state that is relatively predictable. Luminance values can be estimated based on this state, and these luminance values have been used to calculate contrast using the Michelson definition. This paper proposes a method for determining the contrast of colored areas displayed on a CRT. It uses a contrast metric that is in wide use in visual psychophysics and shows that the metric can be approximated reasonably without display measurement, as long as it is possible to assume that the CRT has been adjusted according to usual CRT setup standards.

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A practical approach to calculating luminance contrast on a CRT

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics

ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 11, Issue 4

Oct. 1992

118 pages

ISSN:0730-0301

EISSN:1557-7368

DOI:10.1145/146443

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1992 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1992

Published in TOG Volume 11, Issue 4

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